Knowing this spiral we can understand the mysteries of the soul and the body, for they are one. This direction from infinity to humanity we call the spiral of materialization. Suppose that
within infinity, an endless ocean, one small spiral arises, creating an entire universe. The visible world dissolves itself into the in-visible world again. Body and spirit are not separate. Spirit changes into body, which is a part of spirit, and this body dis-solves into spirit again. This process is continually going on. If we cannot have physical health, we cannot conceive the spiritual world.
Many people think that body and spirit are separate, but this view is incorrect. The relative life is manifested as a small spiral in the ocean of spirit; at the most dense, inmost point within the spiral a visible form appears, our body, and it disappears into invisibility—that is, spirit. Body and spirit are the same thing. As you know, many people ignore the health of the body—that means they are ignoring the spirit also. And many people, who are ignoring the spirit, and thinking only of visible property, vis-ible happiness. We have to see both as one continuity. You can call this bodily spiral the small i; and you can call the invisible infinity the large I. The small i is our body and the large I is our food, our field of activity, thinking, feeling, imagination, and all spiritual activities.
For many people today, this body is out of order, because their eating is wrong. That is, their way of taking the material world and changing it into themselves is wrong. They are eating mainly sensorially and sentimentally, and not by using social, ideological, or universal awareness. Within this huge spiral of relativity we have very simple laws. First, everything in this world is changing. Second, this changing is being made by laws of yin and yang. Yin attracts yang, yang attracts yin. If yin be-comes larger, yang bebe-comes larger, and vice versa. These simple laws govern us. What many call God is the same as this infinity.
God created the law of creation and man returns to God by laws of yin and yang. This is the law of life. If we don't understand these laws, our sensory, social, intellectual judgments wander and cannot be in harmony.
Modern science is adrift and wandering, and cannot find out what we are. In this universe there are only two different laws—
taking and discharging. You are eating everything; you take ev-erything egocentrically. Human beings are the biggest egoists in the universe. At the same time you are discharging. If you don't discharge, then you only become fatter and heavier. If you keep yourself empty and hungry, like a vacuum—for instance, by fast-ing—then you become very yang (centripetal) and everything
starts to come in from very distant infinity as well as from your immediate surroundings. Your perceptions become sensitive to the shortest waves. After forty days and nights of fasting, Jesus and Buddha suddenly understood the whole universe—what life is. An empty stomach, therefore, is very good.
We can enjoy this universe, since we are the kings and queens of the world of matter and the invisible world. We can enjoy anything. The important thing is to keep yourself always hungry, always empty. Otherwise you cannot receive anymore, and cannot continue to enjoy yourself. It is perfectly all right to take, but as soon as you take, discharge and give away. This is the key to long life, and to staying happy and free. You can take a million dollars, but as soon as it comes in, you should dis-charge it—give it freely to everyone. If you discover some inspi-ration, some new fact, then immediately give it away.
The unifying principle and the way of life is the law of the universe, the law of God. If we keep this only among our friends, we are becoming exclusive. The value of the order of the uni-verse is a million times greater than a diamond. Unlike the atomic bomb, it doesn't threaten to destroy the entire world, but to change it to health and peace. If we receive, we need to dis-tribute—make many duplicates and distribute them.
God has nothing, infinity has nothing, and therefore, nothing can ever be taken away from it. If we keep something then it will be taken away, so it is better to keep nothing, then everything will come in. That is the key to longevity, health, and happiness.
All kinds of diseases, including cancer, result from forgetting about this principle of life. We learn many things, receive many things, egocentrically. Therefore, it is important to discharge these things as quickly as possible. It is much easier to keep yourself empty than to have a million dollars.
This is a changing world. You will disappear some day, this earth will disappear, this galaxy will disappear—this visible uni-verse will change. But movement itself, change, is endless and constant and immortal. The law of change is justice. Eveiything in this grand universe is changing and you are the king or queen of this universe. You changed yourself, within infinity, into a human being. You are a manifestation of infinity. By your daily eating and activity you are changing yourself. Infinity is a won-derful thing.
By eating we are changing, for example, the seeds of the veg-etable kingdom into human life, after only forty-eight hours they
become a part of us. Eating is a wonderful function of changing life. Eating is the transmutation of life from nature, from infinity.
If you have a big appetite for food, that is very good. You are transmuting everything into your vitality, your energy. You can change everything into yourself, into your thinking and activity.
Change is unlimited. There is no such thing as bad or good.
We can change anything into ourselves. To attain this endless liberty is the final goal of macrobiotics. As you know, thousands of people have recovered their health through macrobiotics; but this is only kindergarten. The purpose of macrobiotics is to be-come free to change this world into what we want—unhappiness into happiness, sickness into health, war to peace, misery to love.
This is freedom. When you attain this freedom, you really be-come the children of the Kingdom of Heaven. You are the chil-dren of this kingdom, but you are unable to see it. If you can't change yourself, how can you change the world? If you want to change others, first change yourself and make yourself happy.
Once you can change your own biological and psychological life, then you can change the entire world of matter, because it is much simpler than the biological world.
The next step is to change your consciousness and spiritual-ity into whatever you want by discovering the principle of peace, justice, freedom. If you graduate from these—biological change, material change, spiritual change—then you become free and you need only enjoy this infinite universe as children of the Kingdom of Heaven. Before you there is nothing impossible. You can change anything. You don't need to accuse, you don't need to quarrel; rather, you become humble and modest, surrendering yourself unconditionally. Before you are attacked, put up the white flag of surrender, then the attack won't come. If, from the beginning, you surrender, then there is no enemy, and no attack.
Our ignorance is caused by our lack of memory, which is in turn, a direct result of poor eating. What is memory? If we re-cover our ability to remember, we can recall not only our youth but our infinite origin; then life cannot help but be happy and amusing. Some psychologists say that our brain, with its billions of cells, is the area where some things are remembered. Another part of the brain remembers something else. They conclude that some part of the brain is the storehouse of memory—that mem-ory is recorded as if it were on a tape recorder. But we know that our cells are fed by the bloodstream and are changing every day.
Ten years ago our cells were completely different than they are
today. Yet we can remember what happened ten years ago or fifty years ago. Some scientists say that if a certain part of the brain is damaged, then we can't recall certain things. They think that part is storing something, like a warehouse. This is wrong.
That particular part of the brain has a certain quality that enables it to translate vibrations from outside. Our thinking and recalling are not done by us but, rather, come through us, much as music comes through a radio. When the radio's tubes are poor, it can-not pick up vibrations well; when our brain is dulled from poor eating, it cannot translate these wavelengths and loss of memory results.